First step toward losing the holiday weight

If you're like me, you've probably put on a couple (or more) pounds since the holidays. Being winter and all, we probably aren't riding and exercising as much as we should. I have found that in order to put things into perspective and encourage a healthy lifestyle, it helps to keep a food diary.

Your diary can be as simple as an entry in a notebook, or you can go all-out and design your own spreadsheet to keep track, but the key is to log everything you eat. Every day.

Start with breakfast, include snacks, and finish with the last bite of food you put in your mouth during the day. I find that it helps to do this in an outline format:

Breakfast:
1 bagel
1 orange
1 banana

Lunch:
6" Subway Club sandwich on whole wheat
Bag of Baked Lays potato chips
Medium Diet coke

Snack:
handful of pretzels
Etc...

If you want, you can include calorie counts per serving as well as number of servings. This is where having a scale can help. calorieking.com has an extensive database of many popular foods if you are unsure, although just listing everything you eat and drink can still be pretty sobering.